Another Day, Another False Narrative

For Leftists, politics is both a social event and an economic victory. The Left specializes in coming up with someone who was injured, theoretically, by those in power, and using him as an excuse for days of riots and taking over institutions. It’s like a monkey riot, or flash mob stealing from a local 7-11.

Today’s riot will come to you courtesy of Antwon Rose II, who was shot by police after fleeing from a car that was pulled over after participating in a drive-by shooting. However, the media as usual presents that backward in order to promote its message of Christ-like innocent minorities terrorized by white strength and power.

A video that recorded the fatal shooting on Tuesday night and was posted on Facebook shows two people running from police vehicles as three shots are fired. One of the people, later identified as Antwon, appears to fall to the ground.

The authorities confirmed on Thursday that Antwon was struck three times but did not specify where.

“Why are they shooting?” the woman recording the video says. “All they did was run and they’re shooting at them!”

Quick, haul out the innocent high school photo. Then run the facts: shot in the back, all they did was run, he was a passenger in the car doing nothing but minding his own business, the driver was released without charge. After quickly glossing over the technical stuff, we get to what The New York Times does so well — swelling emotion:

Those who knew Antwon described him as bright, lively and funny. He was a senior at Woodland Hills High School who was expected to graduate at the end of the year, the superintendent, Al Johnson, said in an interview on Wednesday.

Kim Ransom, the owner of the Pittsburgh Gymnastics Club, where Antwon worked for about a year, recalled the sweltering day in 2015 that he interviewed to work at the club as an instructor.

“He brought his typed-up résumé and he was wearing a full three-piece suit with his shiny shoes and he was sweating profusely,” she said.

An angel ascends to heaven, wearing a three-piece suit and trying to just Do The Right thing as suburban white moms and scrawny curly-haired young men in offices see it. Then read more deeply into the boring part we just glossed over, as they knew we would:

The teenager, Antwon Rose II, 17, was a passenger in a car that had been pulled over because it matched the description of a vehicle that had fled an earlier shooting in which a 22-year-old man was wounded, the Allegheny County Police Department said in a statement.

The Allegheny County Police Department, which is investigating the encounter, said that two firearms were found on the floor of the car.

On Thursday, Mike Manko, a spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, confirmed reports that Antwon, while unarmed, had an empty clip of a handgun in his pants pocket at the time he was shot.

…Investigators said a gunman in a passing vehicle had fired nine .40-caliber rounds at the 22-year-old, who returned fire.

The 911 callers described a vehicle they saw fleeing the scene, the police said, and Officer Rosfeld saw a similar vehicle — a silver Chevrolet Cruze that appeared to have ballistics damage to its rear window.

If the driver was released, this means the police had no reason to believe that he was aware of what his passengers intended before it happened. Kids cruising around, and then one sees a target and rolls down the window… In fact, if the driver was released, he is probably cooperating with police.

Not only that, but they identified the car by make, model, and the fact that its rear window was shot out by the return fire from the victim.

Antwon Rose II was no angel. Like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Philandro Castile, he was engaged in risky behavior and lost the running-from-the-cops lottery. The Left wants to ignore that fact because the Left hates accountability for the consequences of our choices, and loves a racial revenge fantasy.

Their goal, as usual, is extortion. After a few days of protests that turn into riots that turn into looting, media blitzes that have every white person weeping in their soy lattes because they did not bother to read the glossover details, and European commentators sagely nodding their heads at the savage Americans, people will open their wallets and pay to make the problem go away. That is the middle class way.

We can stop this one in its tracks and burn down their favorite method of gaining power. Simply say, “The kid who did that drive-by and got caught? Yep, not getting involved in that.” Instead of presuming innocence based on the emotional content, let us just preserve all the facts, and realize that most likely, Antwon Rose II was the architect of his own doom.